Letter: Responses to Matthew Fisher

Canadian Lieutenant-General Jonathan Vance, Commander of Canadian Joint Operation Command, holds a technical briefing on combat strikes against the Islamic State of Irag (ISIL) in Ottawa, at National Defence Heaquarters, Tuesday November 4, 2014.FRED CHARTRAND / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Columnist Matthew Fisher would have us believe that electing the Liberals in 2015 would radically change our military strategies, from warring to “Kumbaya.” He assumes that there are no pitfalls from our current warring mode that should warrant rethinking. He says that previous Liberal governments have sent our military to war — well of course they have, including the Second World War, ironically citing the Chrétien government who sat out the invasion of Iraq.

I doubt very much that a Liberal government would do anything differently, that foreign policies would drastically change, because that’s the way Canada has always been, rational: come to the aid where war is necessary, and peacekeeping where it isn’t. The lone Trudeau denouncement of war was in the preamble as to whether or not to bomb ISIL, and, although I was onside with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision, I and perhaps many others may regret this combat that seems endless, like the war in Afghanistan where more than 2,000 Canadians were injured or killed and so many others with post traumatic stress disorder.

If there is to be any change, I think it would be peacekeeping as our default mode, and war if we were absolutely certain that it was necessary.

Peter Haley, Ottawa

A smarter approach

In his column, Matthew Fisher chronicles a litany of international hot spots seemingly spinning out of control. His message to Canadians seems clear: to fight oppression and terrorism we need to stay the militaristic course adopted first by the Chrétien and Martin governments in Afghanistan and now more broadly across the region by the current Conservative government.

However, what Fisher fails to point out is that the west’s combative Middle Eastern strategy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and elsewhere has been an utter failure in stemming the tide of radical Islam. In fact there are convincing arguments that it has had the exact opposite effect by contributing to destabilization across the region and fanning the flames of terrorism.

Coincidentally in the same issue of the Citizen, Ronald Crelinsten’s opinion piece (Tackling the challenge of terrorism in 2015, Dec. 30) points out that the greatest challenge for 2015 is for governments to combine criminal justice and military policies with a comprehensive “smart” approach both at home and abroad.

Although Fisher denigrates Justin Trudeau for apparently dreaming of a gentler Canada in a gentler era, Trudeau has been consistent since the Boston Marathon bombing stating that winning the war against terrorists is contingent on understanding and tackling root causes. Recently, NATO’s top general Philip Breedlove agreed saying “until we have addressed the root causes of these kinds of issues, we can expect to have to continue to deal with these kind of issues.”

Fisher is however correct to point out that Canadians must decide in 2015 whether we want to continue with a government that seems to single-mindedly promote “more of the same militarism” in the hope that it won’t generate more of the same results or to become a leader in developing a more comprehensive, smarter approach to combat terrorism at home and abroad.

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